European Union

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European Union

In the European Union, enlargement, special arrangements for the expansion of the Schengen Area, and the gradual development of a stronger EU role in immigration have added new complexity to the policy landscape, leading to both new patterns of movement and new policies for governing immigration from outside of the European Union's 28 Member States. The research offered here focuses on migration policies, trends, and common challenges that affect Europe at a supranational level—from free movement to asylum policy and the management of EU borders.

As the European Union seeks to implement a Common European Asylum System, these publications and multimedia resources from MPI and MPI Europe examine asylum policy and humanitarian flows to Europe and elsewhere around the world.

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When there's a will, there's a way — migrants seeking illegal entry have proven the old proverb true countless times as they and their smugglers have adapted to enforcement strategies. The latest development in the cat-and-mouse game comes not from the United States, but from Europe.

Europe's largest minority group has long faced discrimination, but France's deportation of Roma as part of its security policies has sparked criticism from the European Union and human rights groups. Kristi Severance explains how the situation has evolved in recent months, the relevant EU laws, and how Europe is likely to move forward.

Since joining the European Union in 2004, Poland has experienced one of the largest emigration flows in its postwar history. But the country has also received thousands of immigrants and refugees, mainly from its eastern neighbors, and is just beginning to invest in immigrant integration. Krystyna Iglicka and Magdalena Ziolek-Skrzypczak look at all aspects of migration in Poland in this updated profile.

In its newest five-year "roadmap" for justice and home affairs policy, the European Union has made migration a priority area. But while the Stockholm program offers plenty of detail on issues like illegal migration and asylum, it offers few specifics as to the final goal. MPI's Elizabeth Collett analyzes the program's action points and looks at challenges facing its implementation.

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This policy brief reviews the challenges that face the EU-wide social security coordination system. It argues that while improving the fairness, clarity, and public support for this system are difficult, even small concessions from the European Commission could provide an opportunity to showcase the elements that do work.

Immigrant-receiving countries have introduced a range of policies to improve the recognition of foreign qualifications. This report explores strategies for ensuring that qualified immigrants can contribute their training and talent to the labor force.

This report explains the basic structure of the engineering workforce, and the elements that influence the ability of engineers to move across borders. It examines recent efforts to address national differences in education and accreditation, and also considers how serious the barriers to international migration for engineers are in practice.

This policy brief explores the relationship between environmental change and migration to Europe in light of recent scholarship challenging the notion that environmental change triggers mass migration. It presents an overview of European policy response in this area and summarizes the spectrum of proposed solutions.

The integration of mobile EU citizens as a specific target group has not been widely discussed, either at EU or national levels, and EU-level integration policies focus on the integration of legally residing third-country nationals. This report investigates the broad range of integration needs that exist in Europe.

While free movement is at the heart of the European project, the merits and impacts of intra-EU mobility have come under significant scrutiny recently amid public anxiety about competition for jobs and exploitation of welfare systems. This report provides a detailed assessment of free movement, motivations for migration, and challenges countries may need to address as intra-EU mobility enters its next phase.

As the European Commission looks ahead to the next strategic program for immigration in 2014, this policy brief sketches the challenges in developing a strategic, long-term agenda on migration at a time when Europe remains beset by fiscal uncertainty and a jobs crisis that is particularly acute for the young. Against such a backdrop, few governments are willing to have a serious conversation about anything but skilled immigration.